Experts and baseball insiders warn that arbitration can cause relationship damage because the ballclub goes to great lengths to highlight the player's shortcomings.

Look, we love Timmy, but have you seen his clubhouse locker? Here's a photo. It looks like a gypsy camp. He leaves his Cy Young Awards lying around, someone's going to trip and break a leg.

Lincecum is asking $13 million. The Giants are offering $8 million. What we're worried about, then, is that Lincecum might go into a huge sulk if the arbiter rules that Timmy must play six months of baseball for $8 million dollars.

Even if he wins the judgment, his heart and spirit could be broken.

Lincecum, to his credit, seems much less concerned than are many of his fans and media backers.

"If anybody knows my flaws, I do," Lincecum said last week. "If (the Giants) are going to put them out and that has to happen, whatever."

See? "Whatever." Exactly.

So what if the Giants argue that Lincecum faded over the second half last season? He knows. He was there.

Somewhere along the line, baseball arbitration became poetry judging, with the greatest fear being that overly harsh criticism might shatter the psyche of a sensitive artiste.

But it's not a poetry contest. It's grown men fighting over bales of money.

There's no crying in baseball. Agents are exempt from that rule, but win or lose, you're not going to hear Lincecum complain that the Giants were too mean to him in the hearing.

The Freak is a smart young man. How smart? He told reporters last week that his two Cy Young Awards are in his car. Genius. Picture Timmy opening his car door for a date and saying, "Excuse the mess. Here, let me toss these Cy Young thingies into the backseat."